


armed to the teeth

by orphan_account



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:09:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9613226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: maccready wishes he were more heartless.





	

**Author's Note:**

> a repost with minor edits, because i felt bad letting this sit in google. also - if anyone is interested in beta reading my shit in the future please let me know

the trapper catches maccready on the reload, shoots his knees to hell while shouting "who are you? who am _i_?" sole sees maccready stumble and fall and then sees red. 

it's not as dramatic as in the prewar novellas - sole didn't smash their heads to pulp in a haze (though the haze by itself was definitely there.) maccready told him after that he'd calmly reloaded his own gun and shot the three remaining trappers in the head, aiming surely one after the other. "it's amazing i hadn't passed out at that point, but hell man you were fuc-freaking scary. im pretty sure the crazy idiot who got my legs pissed himself." sole had thrown him an uneasy smile and a stimpack.  
___

if sole is sure of one thing anymore, it's that he wouldn't be able to handle the loss of another person he cares about. in this constantly-dangerous, screwed up version of the world he grew up in, that doesn't seem possible, but he'll fight tooth and fucking nail to keep maccready and the others alive (even if it costs him his own life.) 

it's gotten to the point where he's too self-sacrificial even for maccready's taste; he's always muttering snide comments about sole's over the top generosity towards anyone in need. this coming from his partner, with his own willingness to throw himself into dangerous situations without thinking. sole thinks maccready doesn’t understand why he has to protect him. the truth is, maccready has the same thoughts every time sole is hit - he can't see anyone else get killed because he wasn't watching their back.  
___

when sole fucks maccready he is impossibly gentle and horribly silent. impossible, because maccready does not and will never feel deserving of such tenderness from another person, especially sole. horrible, because the silence from sole only makes maccready's own moans and keens that more loud in whatever small, dingy space they're holed up in this time. 

when sole fucks him, it feels right physically (so, so right) but inside his head maccready can sense something is wrong. through the haze of pleasure that crowds his vision and gets stronger each time sole thrusts into him (maccready's legs are locked around sole's waist and it's up against a wall, on a table or on the disgusting floor but never, _ever_ on a bed,) maccready can see that there's something awfully wrong in sole's expression. his eyes are screwed shut - he doesn't ever look at maccready when they fuck - his mouth is closed where maccready is whining like a whore, and he's got a tenseness to his body that seems pretty inappropriate for sex-having. 

maccready always shrugs it off (whatever, the vault dweller doesn't like fucking me, it's cool) but he knows that just because you tell yourself you're dismissing something doesn't mean your brain will actually forget about it. actually, you'll probably do the opposite and start asking yourself questions like "why doesn't my 240 year old boss enjoy having sex with me?" and maybe even "am i that much of a dirty wastelander?" 

hardened mercenaries like maccready don't typically fall prey to these type of teenage-angsty thoughts, but _damn_ would he like to know what's so wrong with him that sole can't look him in the eye even when his cock is in maccready's ass.

___

when sole and maccready aren't having sex, (which is probably around 85% of the time) sole is perfectly normal. he cracks jokes, he kills raiders, he _looks_ at maccready. he's decided to just chalk the no-eye-contact thing up to sole missing his wife (god knows maccready misses lucy.) this works for a few weeks, until cait comes up to him when he's lounging around the third rail, auburn hair wet with sweat, and proceeds to tell him how good of a shag sole is (as if maccready didn't know.) she describes in inappropriate detail how he’d held her down, looked her in the eye, and "fucked me like he was a deathclaw and i was his prey!" 

no, maccready doesn't appreciate the metaphor. deathclaws having sex? gross. maccready also doesn't appreciate knowing that it isn't sole, it's _him_ , but he's made the executive decision to ignore that for the time being. 

charlie, bless the robot, offers him a drink and tells him to perk the hell up. maccready snorts but accepts the watered-down beer placed in front of him.  
_to dead wives,_ he thinks, and drinks.

___

maccready isn't weak. sole knows maccready could kill him if he wanted to - knows that it probably wouldn't even phase him. sole's just another in a long line of bosses for maccready, disposable (he knows this.) still, it's easy to forget that maccready is a mercenary who has killed more people in the time they've been travelling together than sole ever did when it was his _job_ , when maccready is getting excited over a preserved comic book they've found or when he has to stand on his tiptoes to give sole a stimpack in the neck. 

sole knows maccready isn't weak. he just has a hard time remembering it.

___

sole's almost positive he's pissed maccready off. he doesn't know how, or when, but he elects to let maccready go in goodneighbor and take up with dogmeat for awhile. awhile ends up being over a month, because those goddamn holotapes nick wanted to find were scattered _everywhere_. sole hadn't realized just how many goddamn precincts could be in one city.

nick said he could bring maccready to kill eddie winter whenever he was finished with the tapes, so sole reluctantly sends dogmeat home (his conscience can barely handle the sad whimper he receives in return) and heads to the third rail.

maccready's sitting at the bar, beer in hand, looking like a disgruntled kid. his small body is hunched over the bar _do not think about maccready's body when you haven't even seen the man in over a month, dammit sole_ , and whitechapel charlie's giving him as pitying a look as his eyestalks can handle. sole suddenly feels a pang of guilt at having left him alone so long, recalling that being by himself was one of maccready's _worst fears_ as he sidled up to him and gave a sheepish smile.

"so, those tapes," sole runs a hand over his close-cropped hair as maccready looks up at him. no one had ever told him how to casually approach someone who may or may not be your significant other after practically abandoning him for a month. 

"they were a lot more scattered than i thought they would be. dogmeat and i had a pretty shitty time trying to get them together." maccready raised a dubious eyebrow.

"we finally going to take down that old fuc-jerk? about time. i thought you'd forgotten about me," sole feels guilty all over again at that, but maccready's throwing caps on the counter and standing up, adjusting the rifle on his shoulder.

"what are you staring at me for? let's go," maccready gripes at him and makes for the stairs.

charlie makes a disapproving noise behind him, but sole ignores it and heads up the stairs after maccready.

___

they kill that sick bastard eddie winter before he even has a chance. maccready thinks nick might've short-circuited something during his intense monologue to eddie; he'd never seen a robot look so _angry_ before. of course, winter did kill his fiancée and then brag about it, so maccready can see where the anger is coming from.

sole, gentle peacemaker as always, insists nick that he owes them no debt and follows him up and out of the bunker like a loyal puppy. maccready almost got his arm shot off dealing with the raiders upstairs, and sole's not even gonna make nick cough up a few caps? maccready's knows it's greedy, but it's certainly not his face that's bringing in the caps. he's gotta be able to shoot to live.

and isn't that freaky - he's stopped assuming him and sole will be together indefinitely. maccready can't say why (god knows he's still head over heels for the dumb, generous idiot) but he supposed it's got something to do with the casual distance that started with the emotional and has expanded out to the physical. maccready was in goodneighbor, _alone_ for over a month. he doesn’t like to make a habit of getting attached, but damn, didn't sole know how shitty it was for him? 

_apparently not_ , maccready thinks idly as he follows sole back to diamond city. yet, he can’t imagine sole being that oblivious. he wonders what happened to little lamplight maccready - the maccready who would ask without a care for the other person’s opinion or, fuck, their feelings.

as he walks in the wasteland with sole and nick, past farms and settlements and everything in between, he decides that that maccready is going to make a comeback, hard.


End file.
